Lameness
Lameness and decrease in performance can be some of the most common and frustrating problems that horse owners encounter. Regardless if your horse enjoys a quiet life in the pasture or competes at an elite level, lameness limits activity and negatively impacts quality of life. As veterinarians, our goal is to return the horse to soundness by obtaining an accurate diagnosis and an appropriate treatment plan. At Renewed Animal Wellness, we offer lameness evaluations and digital diagnostics including our new digital ultrasound. At this time, we do not have the capabilities of digital radiographs (x-rays) but will be adding this Spring 2017.
If we do not have the necessary advanced diagnostics, Renewed Animal Wellness maintains relationships to referral clinics and hospitals that offer these procedures. Some of these diagnostics include Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), nuclear scintigraphy (bone scan), orthopedic surgery, and intensive rehabilitation programs.
During your horse’s recovery, we will work with you to design a detailed and individualized rehabilitation program. When appropriate, we also offer integrative services such as spinal manipulation, acupuncture, and herbal therapy.
Joint Support
Osteoarthritis, or degenerative joint disease, is one of the most common underlying causes of lameness. Arthritis primarily affects the middle age or older horse, but can strike at any age and have negative effects on performance and quality of life.
There are a wide variety of joint therapies offered within veterinary medicine. Please discuss with our veterinarians about the best options for your horse based on the cause, duration, and severity of his or her joint problems. We offer the following products:
- Oral Joint Supplements
- Essentially all oral supplements contain the same building blocks of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate. There are numerous companies and products on the market that add additional ingredients. Since all of these ingredients are considered nutraceuticals, none are regulated by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).
- Oral joint supplements are available in a variety of forms. Including powder, pellet, and cookie form. Our veterinarians will be happy to discuss the products that they recommend based on their experiences.
- Intramuscular Injection
- Adequan IM
- Glucosamine IM
- Pentosan IM
- Intravenous Injection (Equine patients only)
- Legend IV
- Intra-articular Injection (Equine patients only)
- Hyaluronic Acid (HA)
- PSGAGs
- Corticosteroids
At Renewed Animal Wellness, we have offer different levels of medications used for joint therapy. We will work with you and your performance goals in order to tailor the best treatment for your equine or canine partner.
Mesotherapy
Mesotherapy is a technique that was developed by the French doctor Michel Pistor in 1952. It acts to stimulate the mesoderm, the middle layer of the skin. The principle is based on the theory that Types I and II nerve fibers coming from the skin have collateral fibers that can decrease or block the transfer of information from deep structures of the same spinal segment to the brain.
Adding mesotherapy to our list of tools, this may allow for another method in order to help alleviate pain. Mesotherapy’s benefits have been noticed in the treatment of neck stiffness, generalized back discomfort, and sacro-iliac pain. Frequently, these treatments are used in combination with additional therapies.
This technique involves the injection of substances to stimulate the mesoderm layer for various biological purposes. We use very small needles to penetrate into the skin, typically 4-6 millimeters. Medication is then deposited in rows along the area of concern. The bumps where the medication was deposited will dissipate over several hours and the benefits should become noticeable in 3-7 days following treatment. The number of treatments will depend on the condition, severity, and duration. Typically one to three treatments are recommended.
